Kousuke, who had been sleeping on the sofa in the lounge space, woke up when he felt a cool chill on the back of his hand.
“…Huh? Ah, it’s Sura.”
He casually brought his hand to his face to check, and confirmed that Sura was attached to it. Sura, who could normally become quite large, would miniaturize when approaching Kousuke. It was currently palm-sized, but could become one meter large if it wanted to. Rin, its original, could become even larger, so Sura might also be able to grow bigger, but Kousuke didn’t know for sure.
In any case, thanks to Sura (?), Kousuke was completely awake. He sat up and looked around. Kouhi was always by his side, watching over him, but no one else was there. Kousuke had made it a habit to take a two to three-hour nap in the afternoon recently, and no one would disturb him.
“Let’s see…” Kousuke, with Sura still “wrapped” around his right hand, stretched both arms upwards and stretched his neck with a series of pops. He wasn’t stiff because he had slept in an awkward position, but he did it just because he felt like it.
As he rotated his neck, Kousuke muttered to himself, not to anyone in particular.
“…It really isn’t just my imagination.”
“Did you say something?”
“No. It’s nothing. Just talking to myself.”
Kouhi reacted to his muttering, but Kousuke shook his head.
Kousuke was unaware that the women were discussing various things behind the scenes, but he had noticed the unnaturalness of his continuous naps in recent days. After all, he could still sleep soundly at night despite napping every day. However, if it were just that his sleep time had increased, Kousuke would have dismissed it as something that happens.
But after noticing changes in his own physical condition beyond just increased sleep time, he had begun to connect it to that. That said, he wasn’t feeling unwell. In fact, he was feeling better, so he wasn’t anxious.
There was only one thing Kousuke could think of that might be the cause of this change. Since it involved a divine ritual, he had been thinking for the past few days about whom to ask.
“Alright, I’ve decided.” With a clear expression, Kousuke said that and then left the lounge space.
The place Kousuke headed to was the divine realm where Kuro was. It wasn’t that he wanted to hide from the women, but he decided it would be better to discuss the matter from a place separate from the normal world, considering who he was talking to. After greeting Kuro and the wolves who rushed up to him upon his arrival in the divine realm, Kousuke began a divine union with his intended conversation partner.
“Asra, are you free now?”
“Yes, of course. I was expecting you might come soon.”
Asra replied immediately as soon as Kousuke initiated the divine union. Not only that, but she seemed to fully grasp the reason for Kousuke’s union.
“Haha. It’s helpful that you get straight to the point. So, what about it?”
“It’s just as you’re thinking, Kousuke. Through the ritual, your influence from the land has increased, and your divine power has risen. Because of that, your body simply requires more sleep.”
Kousuke’s expression became one of understanding at the casually delivered fact. Kousuke had been feeling that his own power had increased compared to before. Even if Asra told him this now, it wouldn’t be surprising. The women were concerned about how Kousuke would take it, but Kousuke himself wasn’t particularly bothered. He hadn’t expected such a strong influence, but he had anticipated something to some extent when he considered the ritual.
More importantly, Kousuke had something else he was curious about, which was why he contacted Asra.
“Putting that aside, will I continue to need this much sleep going forward?”
“Oh? You’re quite quick to let it go. Well, that aside, the answer to your question is no. Once the holy realm stabilizes, your power will also stabilize. You’ll return to your previous sleep schedule.”
“Is that so? That’s good.” For Kousuke, the problem wasn’t the increase in his divine power, but the decrease in his usable time due to the increased need for sleep. Since he didn’t know what would happen if he forced himself to stay awake, he couldn’t simply resist the urge to sleep. Because of this, he had been managing by cutting into other activities, and he sighed in relief knowing that this wouldn’t continue.
Asra’s laughter could be heard, perhaps sensing Kousuke’s feelings.
“That’s so like you, Kousuke. For us, for whom time is practically non-existent, it’s normal to think that a temporary increase in sleep time wouldn’t make much of a difference. It’s the same for the women around you, isn’t it?”
Asra said this with a divine sense of time.
“Perhaps if I lived for a much longer time, I would think that way, but my sense of time hasn’t changed from when I was human.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I wasn’t blaming you. I think it’s good for you to be yourself. That’s probably why the other goddesses are drawn to you.”
“N-, no, I don’t think they’re drawn to me, I think they’re just curious about a rare creature?” Kousuke hastily replied to Asra, who had said something (in Kousuke’s opinion) unthinkable.
“Oh. Is that so?” Asra only replied with that and said nothing more, but her words were so full of implication that Kousuke felt an indescribable feeling.
Having heard what he wanted from Asra, Kousuke played with Kuro and the others for a while before returning to the lounge space. Normally, he would go to his laboratory to research magic tools, but he had noticed something while concentrating on the lounge space, so he decided to go there. And as Kousuke opened the room door, Nana was sitting there waiting for him.
“Oh. Your Kousuke detector is accurate as always, Nana.” As Kousuke petted Nana’s head, Colette approached him with a smile.
“Oh? Are you alone, Colette? Where are the children?”
“I left them with the wet nurse. It’s good to relax here sometimes, isn’t it?” Although Colette said that, she had actually come to check on Kousuke. Colette had also heard from Silvia and was concerned about Kousuke.
“Of course, you can come anytime, but…” Unaware of Colette’s true intentions, Kousuke replied while continuing to pet Nana.
Kousuke came to the lounge space not because he knew Colette was there, but because he knew Nana was there. Since his divine power had increased, Kousuke could somehow sense the locations of Nana, Wanri, and Sura. He could currently perceive Sura moving from concealment towards Kousuke’s location. While he couldn’t tell their exact location if they were on different floors of the Tower, he could grasp their general whereabouts if they were on the management layer. He had come because he sensed Nana’s presence when he left the divine realm, and he was right. Kousuke acknowledged that he was becoming more and more inhuman at an accelerating rate, but he had grown (?), to the point where he could simply manage with a bitter smile. Kousuke had undergone a subtle growth.
By the way, the increase in power is overall, not just the ability to perceive divine beasts.
